Rockingham County School District needed intuitive, user-friendly, and reliable technology to support new learning initiatives. The district successfully launched Canvas and issued Chromebooks to 4,300 high schoolers to provide a digital space for teachers and students to communicate and organize their work and it’s a solution teachers love.
The Challenge
Rockingham County School District, north of Greensboro, North Carolina, educates 4,300 high school students. Before adopting Canvas, the district’s technology department was in final preparations to roll out a 1:1 initiative that would eventually reach every high schooler.
Dennis Frye, then the director of instructional technology and media for the district, understood that giving personal learning devices to high school students is great in theory. He also knew that for students to realize the full benefits, Rockingham needed a learning platform that could serve as a digital space for teachers and students to communicate and organize their work.
“In today’s digital world, there’s an abundance of information at everyone’s fingertips, and it can be really overwhelming for students,” Frye said. “If you’re not careful, new technology can quickly detract from the education process instead of enhancing it. We needed a simple, open learning system to tie everything together.”
Key Findings
Teachers LOVE Canvas because of improved communication and productivity.
Favorite features: How well it works with Chromebooks and Google tools; on-demand audio and video; intuitive interface; and the gradebook.
Teachers trained in only 2 days
Teachers won’t need to spend a lot of time tracking down assignments, documenting grades or reminding students
about looming deadlines. With Canvas as part of our 1:1 mobile learning initiative, teachers can focus on teaching.
Dennis Frye,
Director of Instructional Tech & Media, Rockingham County Schools
The Solution
Having been an adjunct professor at a local community college, Frye had worked with four learning management systems: Blackboard, ANGEL, Moodle, and Canvas. Based on those experiences, he chose Canvas because of the system’s intuitive nature, technological advantages, and guaranteed uptime.
“I’ve been in education for many years, and I know that for a technology to be successful it has to be intuitive, user-friendly, and reliable,” he said. “If there are a lot of problems with it, teachers will stop using it. They don’t have time to fight with an inadequate, cumbersome program.”
Rockingham’s teachers were excited about all the ways Canvas would help them improve productivity by creating a more organized digital classroom—from communicating the class calendar to grading assignments. They also recognized that having an LMS in place was key to launching a successful 1:1 initiative.
According to Frye, several teachers delayed their retirement just to work with Canvas in the classroom. One year after implementing Canvas and initially delivering 47 high school courses, Rockingham introduced the hardware phase of its 1:1 program.
The Results
Christy Barham, the district’s media and technology coordinator, said administrators opted to purchase Chromebooks instead of traditional laptops or tablets because they are generally less expensive, they require less technical support, and they boot up immediately upon opening. Chromebooks primarily enable users to access the internet with applications and data residing on the cloud.
“Our teachers and students are very comfortable with the cloud-based Google Drive and Google Apps. And they work so seamlessly with Canvas. Being able to connect those two services was crucial in our decision-making process.”
-Christy Barham, Media and technology Coordinator, Rockingham County School District
Rockingham first piloted the technology in 2011 by setting up Chromebook carts with 10 shared devices for every high school classroom. In 2012, the district issued Chromebooks to each of its 4,300 high school students and expanded Chromebook carts to every grade throughout its elementary and middle schools.
“Three years after combining Canvas with Chromebooks, Rockingham’s teachers “can’t imagine separating the two. Canvas makes their workload manageable in a 1:1 environment and o ers the best user experience for both teachers and for students.”
-Christy Barham, Media and technology Coordinator, Rockingham County School District
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